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fttlS  TITLE  HAS  8t.E.H  MlCKyrlUWfcS 

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in.c  VlJftE  ms  e€£N  MICROFILMED 


ADDRESS 


CHIEF  JUSTICE  WALTER  CLARK 


BEFORE    THE 


FEDERATION    OF   WOMEN'S   CLUBS 


NEW  BERN,  N.  C.  8  MAY,  1913 


SECOND  EDITION 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

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iit/i'  ,com/iuwif>?rfo  ,c/' 


ADDRESS 

BY 

CHIEF  JUSTICE  WALTER  CLARK 

BEFORE   THE 

FEDERATION  OF  WOMEN'S  CLUBS 

NEW   BERN.    N.   C.   8    MAY.   1913 


THE  LEGAL  STATUS  OF  WOMEN  \H   NORTH  CAROLINA: 
PAST,  PRESENT,  AND  PROSPECTIVE. 

Ladies  of  the  Federation : — I  appreciate  the  high  compliment 
of  being  asked,  to  address  you  on  this  occasion.  When  Edmund 
Burke,  the  great  orator  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  England, 
came  to  address  the  student  body  at  the  University  of  Edin- 
burgh, he  faltered,  hesitated,  and  stood  speechless.  You  may 
imagine,  therefore,  the  embarrassment  of  a  mere  man  in  being 
asked  to  appear  before  this  audience. 

You  are  to  be  congratulated  that  your  sessions  are  held  in 
this  beautiful,  hospitable,  and  historic  city,  the  city  of  De  Graf- 
fenried,  the  home  of  "William  Gaston,  and  the  Athens  of  North 
Carolina.  But  for  the  discrimination  against  our  towns  by  the 
railroad,  systems  in  this  State  to  the  extent  of  many  millions  of 
dollars  annually,  JSTew  Bern  would  now  doubtless  have  50  to  75 
thousand  inhabitants.  Whatever  may  be  said  against  Woman's 
Suffrage,  it  is  certain  that  if  the  women  of  our  State  bad  a  share 
in  its  government  they  would  not  have  tamely  submitted,  as  the 
men  have  done,  to  this  oppression,  with  the  resultant  dwarfing 
of  our  towns,  the  depression  of  our  business  interests,  and  the 
injury  to  our  farmers. 

The  subject  on  which  I  have  been  requested  to  speak  to  you 
does  not  admit  of  rhetoric  or  well  rounded  periods.     In  truth, 
it  is  one  which  requires  the  admission  of  shortcomings  and  apolo- 
gies on  the  part  of  those  who  have  prescribed  the  legal  status 
n       of  your  sex. 

V- 

rd 

V- 
0- 


cause  men  were  better  than  the  law  on  this  subject,  and  that  the 
power  of  public  opinion  forced  even  bad  men  to  act  better  than 
the  decisions  of  the  courts  permitted  them  to  do.  At  Manches- 
ter, England,  in  1856,  occurred  an  instance  which  had  a  power- 
ful effect  in  revolutionizing  the  law  as  to  the  property  rights  of 
women.  A  husband  having  failed  in  business,  his  wife  went 
into  the  millinery  business  and  not  only  supported  him  and  their 
children,  but  accumulated  quite  an  estate.  He  died,  leaving  all 
that  she  had  made  to  his  illegitimate  children,  and  she  had  to 
start  life  again  without  a  dollar  for  herself  and  children.  This 
under  the  "common  law" — the  judge-made  law  of  England — 
he  was  fully  entitled  to  do,  for  her  earnings  were  his  property. 
Public  opinion  was  aroused  and  soon  forced  the  enactment  of  a 
statute  which  gave  to  married  women  their  property  of  all  kinds 
and  their  earnings.  Our  Constitution  of  1868  did  the  same. 
Yet  as  construed  by  our  courts,  the  wife  was  still  denied  her 
earnings,  which  until  the  statute  passed  this  year  belonged  to 
her  husband,  and  such  an  instance  as  that  at  Manchester  which 
aroused  the  conscience  of  England  and  compelled  Parliament  to 
overrule  the  decision  of  the  courts  would  have  been  legal  in  this 
State. 

If  conditions  becoming  intolerable,  a  wife  left  her  husband, 
at  common  law  he  had  the  unquestioned  right  to  bring  her  back 
by  force,  like  any  other  runaway  slave.  About  twenty  years 
ago,  in  the  famous  "Clitheroe  case/'  this  was  done,  but  the 
highest  court  in  England,  without  any  change  by  statute,  re- 
formed the  common  law  and  set  the  woman  free.  Old-fashioned 
lawyers  were  shocked,  and  asserted  that  this  was  the  end  of  mar- 
riage ;  but  the  prophesied  evil  has  not  materialized. 

The  intention  of  the  Constitution  of  1868  to  emancipate 
women  fully  as  to  their  property  rights  was  as  clear  as  the  Eng- 
lish language  could  make  it.  But,  unfortunately,  it  had  to  be 
construed  by  judges  who  had  been  raised  up  in  the  old  belief 
as  to  the  total  incapacity  of  married  women.  The  common-law 
idea  was  that  the  wife  was  the  chattel,  the  property,  of  her  hus- 
band. The  judges  raised  up  in  that  idea  construed  the  Consti- 
tution as  nearly  as  possible  into  the  likeness  of  that  which  had 
been.     It  was  a  case  of  "putting  new  wine  into  old  bottles."     It 


is  no  impeachment  of  the  ability  or  honesty  of  the  judges  to 
.say  this.  The  same  contest  between  the  judges  and  the  new 
Constitutions  went  on  all  over  the  country,  and  is  well  described 
by  Chief  Justice  Thatcher  of  Colorado  in  Wells  v.  Caywood, 
3  Col.,  491.  He  said :  "The  courts,  which  have  ever  been  con- 
servative, have  always  been  inclined  to  check  with  an  unsparing 
hand  any  attempted  departure  from  the  principles  of  our  law 
which  were  borrowed  from  England,  and  have  regarded  the 
enactments  enlarging  the  rights  of  married  women  as  a  violent 
inuovation  and  have  construed  them  in  a  spirit  so  narrow  and 
illiberal  as  to  almost  entirely  defeat  their  intention.  But  suc- 
ceeding legislatures  have  reasserted,  in  a  more  unequivocal  form, 
the  same  principles  which  the  court  had  before  expounded 
almost  out  of  existence." 

It  has  taken  act  after  act  of  our  Legislature  to  secure  to  mar- 
ried women  the  rights  which  were  conferred  on  them  by  the 
Constitution  of  1868,  and  they  have  not  yet  quite  reached  the 
full  enjoyment  of  the  rights  given  them  by  that  Constitution. 
The  Constitution  provided  that  all  the  property  to  which  a 
married  woman  after  marriage  might  become  iu  any  manner 
entitled  "should  be  and  remain  the  sole  and  separate  estate  and 
property  of  such  female."  Yet  the  courts  placidly  proceeded 
to  hold  that  the  earnings  from  her  needle,  or  cooking,  or  other- 
wise acquired  by  her  labor  should  nevertheless  become  abso- 
lutely the  property  of  her  husband,  and  that  she  could  not  sue 
for  it.  It  was  not  til  this  year  that  this  was  revoked  by  the 
Legislature  giving  a  married  woman  the  right  to  her  earnings 
and  to  recover  for  her  own  use  damages  for  injuries  to  her  per- 
son. This  law  was  passed  at  the  instance  of  Senator  Y.  S.  Bry- 
ant, and  J.  Frank  Ray  in  the  House.  Another  act  passed  a  few 
years  ago  authorized  her  to  appoint,  after  the  death  of  her  hus- 
band, a  guardian  for  her  children. 

It  was  not  until  1911  that  an  act,  passed  by  the  efforts  of  Sen- 
ator Julius  C.  Martin  of  Buncombe,  authorized  her  to  make  con- 
tracts, tho  for  more  than  40  years  the  Constitution  had  decreed 
that  she  should  possess  the  sole  control  of  her  property.  An  act 
of  the  Legislature  which  had  been  brought  over  from  former 
times,  provided  that  a  married  woman  could  contract  for  neces- 
2 


6 

saries,  etc.,  without  tlie  assent  of  her  husband,  and  thereupon 
the  courts  created  a  judge-made  statute  that  a  married  woman 
could  not  contract  for  anything  else,  even  with  the  assent  of  her 
husband,  except  in  writing  specially  charging  her  property. 
This  was  without  a  line  of  a  statute  to  authorize  it,  and  was 
directly  against  the  purport  of  the  constitutional  provision.  It 
required  a  statute  in  1S91  to  allow  a  married  woman  to  check 
her  own  money  out  of  bank,  tho  the  Constitution  had  nearly  25 
years  before  guaranteed  to  married  women  the  absolute  control 
of  their  property  as  fully  as  if  they  had  remained  single.  It 
was  also  held  (in  S.  v.  Jones,  132  1ST.  C,  1043)  that  notwith- 
standing this  constitutional  right,  a  husband  of  bad  character 
could  go  into  a  house  his  wife  was  renting  out  and  by  his  con- 
duct and  character  prevent  her  renting  it.  Yet  they  say  women 
do  not  need  the  suffrage  to  secure  statutes  guarding  their  rights. 
As  to  the  personal  rights  of  married  women,  I  have  already 
mentioned  that  one  was  burned  at  the  stake  as  late  as  1787,  in 
this  State.  As  late  as  1868,  it  was  held  by  our  Supreme  Court 
that  if  a  husband  whipped  his  wife  with  a  switch  no  larger 
than  his  thumb  he  could  not  be  punished.  Once,  in  England, 
when  a  judge  held  this,  the  ladies  sent  to  get  the  measurement 
of  his  Honor's  thumb.  In  1874  Judge  Settle  in  S.  v.  Oliver,  70 
N.  C,  60,  declared  that  this  State  had  "advanced  from  that 
barbarism."  No  statute  had  ever  given  a  man  the  right  to 
thrash  his  wife  with  a  switch  of  any  kind.  It  was  created 
by  the  judges  in  England  centuries  ago,  whose  decisions,  as  I 
have  said,  constitute  what  is  called  "the  common  law"  which 
you  hear  lawyers  talk  about  so  much.  Our  North  Carolina 
judges  followed  this  without  any  statute  until  Judge  Settle, 
also  without  any  statute,  wisely  and  justly  said  that  we  could 
no  longer  be  so  barbarous.  But  that  did  not  end  the  matter.  In 
1886  the  Court  reverted  to  the  former  barbarism,  and  held  in 
8.  v.  Edens,  95  1ST.  C,  693,  that  a  husband  was  not  indictable 
for  an  assault  upon  his  wife  unless  he  put  her  life  in  peril  or 
inflicted  permanent  injury  or  was  prompted  by  a  malicious  or 
revengeful  spirit.  Notwithstanding  this  last  qualification,  the 
Court  proceeded  to  hold  that  he  could  not  be  punished  for  mali- 
ciously slandering  and  destroying  the  good  name  of  his  wife. 


In  1908  the  matter  again  came  up  in  S.  v.  Fulton,  149  jST.  C, 
485,  when  three  of  the  Court,  following  the  decision  in  S.  v. 
Edens,  held  that  a  man  could  not  he  punished  for  maliciously 
destroying  the  character  of  his  wife  by  slandering  her.  Two  of 
the  judges  (one  of  them  the  accomplished  judge  who  now  pre- 
sides over  the  IT.  S.  Court  for  this  district)  held  that  there  was 
no  exception  in  our  statute  which  would  exempt  such  a  rascal 
from  punishment.  One  of  the  three  judges,  however,  held  that 
hereafter  such  conduct  of  the  husband  should  be  punished  in 
North  Carolina,  but  that  Fulton  was  exempt  because  he  had  a 
"vested  right"  to  slander  his  wife  under  the  previous  decisions 
of  the  Court.  It  looks  more  like  a  "vested  wrong."  It  is,  how- 
ever, by  this  narrow  margin  that  the  good  women  of  this  State 
achieved  judicial  permission  to  be  protected  in  future  against 
false  and  infamous  slanders  on  the  part  of  a  husband  who  has 
taken  an  obligation  at  the  altar  to  "love,  cherish,  and  protect." 

As  matters  now  stand  in  North  Carolina,  married  women 
have  thus  at  last  obtained  from  the  courts  the  assurance  that 
they  can  no  longer  be  thrashed  or  slandered  with  impunity  by 
a  brute  who  is  called  husband.  As  to  their  property  rights, 
while  they  have  not  yet  achieved  the  full  measure  of  the  con- 
trol of  their  property  given  them  by  the  Constitution  of  IS 68, 
they  have  been  empowered  by  acts  of  the  Legislature,  overruling 
the  decisions  of  the  Court,  to  make  contracts  of  all  kinds;  to 
sue  for  and  recover  their  personal  earnings  and  damages  for 
injuries  to  themselves  or  their  property,  and  appoint  guardians 
of  their  children  after  the  death  of  their  husbands.  Tho  con- 
tested at  one  time,  it  is  no  longer  denied  that  they  can  convey 
their  personalty  at  will,  give  checks  upon  funds  in  banks,  devise 
and  bequeath  their  property — all  this  without  the  consent  of 
their  husbands — and  that  they  can  convey  realty  with  the  writ- 
ten assent  of  the  husband,  and  this  assent  has  been  dispensed 
with  by  act  of  the  Legislature  when  the  husband  is  a  lunatic, 
idiot,  or  has  abandoned  her.  But  the  Court  has  recently  held 
that,  tho  of  age  herself,  she  cannot  convey  her  own  property  at 
all  if  the  husband  is  a  minor,  and  they  have  held  by  a  vote  of 
3  to  2  that  she  is  not  a  "freeholder,"  no  matter  how  much  real 
estate  she  owns,  within  the  meaning  of  a  statute  which  requires 
a  petition  for  an  election  to  levy  a  tax  or  assessment  upon  her 


8 

property.  In  most  of  the  other  states  she  now  votes,  and  not 
merely  petitions,  upon  all  such  propositions. 

At  common  law,  to  avoid  imposing  capital  punishment,  which 
at  one  time  was  prescribed  for  204  offenses,  a  man,  however 
illiterate,  was  permitted  to  plead  "benefit  of  clergy,"  that  is, 
that  he  could  read,  and  therefore  was  presumably  a  clergyman, 
and  hence  was  exempt  from  punishment  by  death  for  most  of 
these  offenses.  But  a  woman  was  never  allowed  to  save  her 
life  in  this  way,  on  the  technical  ground  that  a  ivoman  could 
not  be  a  clergyman.  Yet,  my  Lord  Coke  said  that  "woman  was 
a  favorite  of  the  common  law" ! 

When  they  burnt  and  drowned  witches  in  Massachusetts  and 
elsewhere  the  "witch"  was  always  a  woman,  never  a  man.  We 
still  hear  from  anti-suffragists  of  the  "witchery  of  woman." 

Moreover,  at  common  law  it  was  a  crime  to  abduct  an  heir, 
but  no  crime  to  abduct  a  woman  or  girl  against  her  will,  for  im- 
moral purposes;  nor  is  it  yet  a  crime  in  this  State,  unless  she  is 
married,  and  even  then  she  is  disqualified  as  a  witness. 

In  this  State  there  still  prevails  a  gross  difference  as  to  the 
grounds  of  divorce.  One  act  of  infidelity  on  the  part  of  the 
wife  entitles  the  husband  to  a  divorce,  but . his  unfaithfulness 
must  be  habitual.  Those  who  care  to  learn  the  discrimination 
have  but  to  read  the  cases  of  Everton  v.  Everton,  50  !N".  C.  202, 
and  Miller  v.  Miller,  78  1ST.  C,  102,  to  be  enlightened  and  very 
much  astonished. 

Long  in  advance  of  our  tardy  bestowal  of  property  rights 
upon  married  women  it  had  been  given  them  even  in  Eussia, 
and  it  may  surprise  you  still  more  to  learn  that,  tho  under  the 
Mohammedan  religion  it  is  held  that  women  have  no  souls,  yet 
1,200  years  before  we  gave  our  women  an  equality  of  property 
rights  with  the  men,  it  was  guaranteed  to  their  women  by 
Mohammed  in  the  Koran.  You  will  remember  that  he  was  not 
a  Turk,  but  from  the  fierce,  free  wilds  of  Arabia,  and  that  he 
owed  his  start  in  his  career,  like  some  other  men,  to  the  wealth 
and  the  wisdom  of  his  wife.  This  feature  of  his  laws  still  ob- 
tains in  the  Mohammedan  world  and  is  a  tower  of  strength.  It 
is  their  check  upon  the  man's  power  to  divorce  his  wife  at  will. 
The  weakness  of  their  system  is  in  the  seclusion  of  women,  of 
whose  aid  they  are  thus  deprived.     It  has  been  well  said  that 


9 

the  result  in  the  late  Balkan  war  was  due  to  the  freedom,  the 
education,  and  the  practical  cooperation  of  the  women  among 
the  allies  and  the  lack  of  it  among  the  Turks. 

Among  the  Romans,  1,700  years  ago,  married  women  con- 
trolled their  own  property,  and  further  hack  this  was  true  among 
the  Hebrews.  You  will  recall  instances  in  the  Old  Testament, 
among  them  this :  "In  all  the  land  there  were  no  women  found 
so  fair  as  the  daughters  of  Job;  and  their  father  gave  them  in- 
heritance among  their  brethren."  Job,  42  :15.  And  in  Numbers, 
27  :6,  the  Lord  gave  the  direct  commandment  to  Moses  to  allot 
an  inheritance  to  the  daughters  of  Zelophehad.  You  will  recall 
also  that  in  an  idyllic  scene  (Judges,  1 :15)  Achsah,  Caleb's 
daughter,  asked  an  inheritance  and  obtained  of  her  father  a 
"southland  with  the  upper  springs  and  nether  springs" — a 
goodly  inheritance  in  a  thirsty  land.  Yet  when  the  movement 
to  give  property  rights  to  our  women  began  it  was  denounced 
(and  is  still  by  some)  on  the  ground  that  it  would  make  them 
immoral,  and  create  dissensions  and  divorces,  because  husbands 
could  no  longer  control  their  wives. 

The  last  General  Assembly  also,  for  the  first  time,  authorized 
women  to  hold  certain  positions,  as  trustees  on  school  boards  and 
text-book  commissions.  This  was  long  since  the  case  in  Ken- 
tucky, Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Oklahoma,  and  a  ma- 
jority of  the  other  states.  In  all  matters  that  concern  the  schools 
the  mothers  are  much  more  interested  and  better  informed  than 
the  fathers.  A  very  large  proportion  of  the  teachers  are  also 
women.  It  is  therefore  peculiarly  appropriate  that  they  should 
be  authorized  to  hold  these  positions.  Those  who  are  opposed 
to  any  change  whatever  of  course  were  quick  to  claim  that  this 
act  was  unconstitutional.  But  the  Legislature,  containing  a 
large  number  of  able  lawyers,  held  otherwise.  Our  Constitution 
recognizes  three  grades  of  government  agents:  (1)  Mere  em- 
ployees, such  as  clerks,  servants,  and  the  like,  as  to  which  no 
one  will  deny  that  .women  are  eligible.  (2)  Places  of  trust  or 
profit,  as  to  which  no  one  can  contend  that  the  Constitution 
requires  the  incumbent  to  be  a  voter,  and  for  which  the  Legis- 
lature can  prescribe  the  conditions  of  eligibility.  (3)  Offices, 
as  to  which  many  contend  that  only  voters  are  eligible. 


10 

The  line  between  "places  of  trust  and  profit"  and  "offices"  is 
not  clearly  defined,  but  it  is  for  the  Legislature  and  not  for  the 
courts  to  draw  this  line,  and  it  cannot  be  contended  that  the 
Legislature  cannot  fix  the  test  for  eligibility  for  places  of  trust 
or  profit.  As  to  the  offices,  the  Constitution  does  prescribe  that 
"every  voter"  (except  convicts,  paupers,  and  duelists)  is  eligible 
to  office.  But  this  simply  prohibits  the  Legislature  from  dis- 
qualifying any  eligible  voter  from  holding  office.  No  one  whose 
mind  is  not  biased  by  preconceived  opinions  will  say  that  that 
constitutional  provision  prohibits  the  Legislature  from  admit- 
ting women  to  office.  It  makes  "voters"  eligible,  but  it  does  not 
forbid  the  Legislature  to  admit  others  than  voters  to  office,  if 
public  opinion  so  demands. 

In  more  than  30  states  the  women  are  eligible  to  positions  on 
school  boards  and  to  similar  positions.  Their  admission  to  that 
right  in  this  State  was  a  distinct  step  in  advance,  and  was 
brought  about  by  the  organized  support  of  your  Federation  of 
"Women's  Clubs,  aided  by  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  State  Con- 
vention of  teachers,  and  by  Dr.  Joyner,  the  head  of  the  School 
System  of  the  State,  who  knows  well  the  intelligence,  public 
spirit,  and  patriotism  of  the  women  of  the  State  and  the  great 
aid  he  is  giving  to  education  by  securing  their  active  coopera- 
tion on  these  school  boards. 

In  the  United  States  Government  we  have  postmistresses,  and 
they  usually  manage  the  offices  well.  In  England  even  under 
the  common  law  women  were  eligible  to  every  ministerial  office, 
and  were  only  excluded  from  being  judges  and  members  of 
Parliament.  Under  the  Act  of  1907,  in  England,  Ireland,  and 
Scotland,  women  are  eligible  as  mayors,  aldermen,  and  to  all 
other  offices  outside  the  judiciary  and  Parliament.  The  contest 
of  the  militant  suffragettes  seems  unaccountable  to  us  at  this 
distance.  But  it  is  based  upon  the  fact  that  in  the  present  and 
the  last  Parliament  there  was  a  large  majority  pledged  to  con- 
fer the  right  to  vote  for  members  of  Parliament  upon  women, 
and  a  majority  of  the  Cabinet  also  favored  it,  and  that  by  a  sub- 
terfuge the  Government  broke  faith  and  refused  to  allow  the 
vote  to  be  taken  on  the  third  reading,  after  it  had  passed  the 
second  reading  by  nearly  200  majority.     You  may  recall  that 


11 

"Woman's  Suffrage  has  seven  times  passed  its  second  reading  in 
Parliament,  but  the  Government  has  always  prevented  its  com- 
ing to  its  third  reading.  On  Tuesday  of  this  week  it  was  de- 
feated by  a  small  majority  because  the  Prime  Minister  threat- 
ened to  resign  and  throw  everything  into  confusion  if  it  passed. 
But  such  a  defeat  is  a  victory. 

As  to  the  capacity  of  women  for  government,  you  all  will 
remember  that  Deborah  was  "Judge  over  all  Israel."  And  pass- 
ing by  the  brilliant  reigns  of  many  other  female  sovereigns,  in 
modern  times,  two  of  the  longest  and  most  brilliant  reigns  in 
England  were  those  of  Elizabeth  and  Victoria.  Then  there 
was  Isabella  of  Spain,  by  whose  aid  Columbus  discovered  this 
Continent,  Maria  Theresa  of  Austria,  and  Catherine  the  Great 
of  Russia.  Yet  I  have  heard  a  lawyer  state  in  a  legal  argument 
that  at  common  law  a  woman  could  hold  no  office  in  England ! 

Besides  conferring  on  women  the  right  to  sit  as  trustees  on 
school  boards  and  colleges,  the  last  Legislature  created  two 
commissions  and  selected  the  women  to  fill  them.  This  was  the 
first  time  this  has  ever  been  done  in  North  Carolina.  Moliere 
tells  us  of  a  newly  rich  man  who  set  himself  to  study  grammar 
and  was  delighted  to  find  that  he  had  been  "talking  prose  all  his 
life,  tho  he  did'  not  know  it."  Our  Legislature  "broke  their 
record,"  without  knowing  it.  They  were  unconsciously  per- 
meated by  the  spirit  of  the  times. 

In  this  State,  down  to  1S99,  in  at  least  two  sections  of  our 
Code  "married  women,  infants,  idiots,  lunatics,  and  convicts" 
were  placed  in  the  same  category.  Practically  they  have  been 
more  or  less  deemed  in  that  category,  in  all  respects,  by  decisions 
of  the  courts  til  these  have  been  overruled  by  the  Constitution 
or  by  legislative  enactment. 

A  single  woman  was  held  fully  capable  of  contracting  and 
controlling  her  property.  On  marriage  she  instantly  lost  that 
capacity.  The  fact  of  marriage  proved  her  in  the  eye  of  the 
law  fit  to  be  classed  with  idiots  and  lunatics.  In  view  of  the 
legal  status  of  married  women  at  that  time,  it  may  be  that  there 
was  some  force  in  the  idea. 

In  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  and  in  most  of  our  states, 
and  in  all  the  provinces  of  Canada,  women  have  the  municipal 
suffrage,  tho  they  have  not  yet  attained  to  the  right  of  full 


12 

suffrage.  There  is  nothing  in  the  Constitution  of  North  Caro- 
lina which  forbids  the  people  acting  thru  the  Legislature  to 
grant  the  women  municipal  suffrage.  It  would  not  he  practica- 
ble without  considerable  agitation  and  education  to  procure  an 
act  conferring  municipal  suffrage  on  the  women  thruout  the 
State.  But  the  Legislature  might  well  provide  by  a  general 
statute  that  any  city  or  town,  upon  petition  of  a  specified  num- 
ber of  the  voters,  shall  vote  upon  an  amendment  to  the  charter 
which  if  adopted  will  entitle  the  women  of  that  town  to  vote 
in  the  city  elections  thereafter  under  the  same  rules  and  regu- 
lations as  the  men.  No  one  can  doubt  that  the  result  would  be 
highly  beneficial  in  procuring  cleaner  cities  and  cleaner  gov- 
ernments for  the  cities,  for  this  has  been  the  case  wherever  it 
has  been  tried.  Should  this  prove  true  here  as  to  those  towns 
first  adopting  it,  it  would  soon  become  universal  thruout  the 
State. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  judge-made  law,  which  is  generally 
known  as  "the  common  law"  of  England,  was  harsher  and  more 
unjust  to  married  women  than  even  the  customs  among  the  bar- 
barians who  were  our  ancestors  several  hundred  years  further 
back,  when  Boadicea,  Queen  of  the  Iceni,  drove  back  the  Roman 
legions.  It  may  interest  the  ladies  present  to  give  the  explana- 
tion which  an  interesting  writer  has  related  as  accounting  for 
this.  There  was  a.  very  great  and  learned  lawyer  in  England 
some  300  years  ago  named  Sir  Edward  Coke.  He  was  Chief 
Justice  of  the  King's  Bench  and  wrote  several  law  books  at  a 
time  when  that  accomplishment  was  rare.  Critical  research  was 
unknown,  and  he  formulated  the  law  much  to  suit  himself.  The 
nephew  and  sole  heir  of  Lord  Chancellor  Hatton  had  left  a 
young  and  beautiful  widow  and  an  estate  which,  estimated  in 
the  money  value  of  our  time,  amounted  to  many  millions.  As 
the  law  then  stood,  this  would  become  absolutely  the  property 
of  her  husband.  Coke  was  a  6  months  widower  with  several 
young  children  and  a  suitor  for  her  hand.  His  rival  in  this,  as 
in  other  matters,  was  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  one  of  the  brightest 
men  of  all  the  ages.  By  feminine  dispensation,  which  like  a 
dispensation  of  Providence  no  man  can  understand  and  none' 
dare  impeach,  she  accepted  the  crabid  Coke  instead  of  the  bril- 
liant and  versatile  Bacon.    But  he  soon  found  that  tho  he  could 


13 

lay  down  the  law  in  the  courtroom  and  in  the  law  books,  Lady 
Coke  laid  down  the  law  at  home,  and  that  without  appeal.  As 
a  result,  every  night,  when  sulking  over  his  defeats,  he  wrote 
into  the  English  law  what  he  thought  married  women  deserved, 
and  for  three  centuries  your  sex  has  paid  the  penalty  for  Lady 
Coke's  eloquence.  She  was  another  Eve,  in  that  your  sex  has 
suffered  vicariously  for  her  sins. 

In  tracing  the  development  of  the  law,  I  have  necessarily 
criticised  some  decisions  of  the  courts,  but  let  it  not  be  supposed 
that  I  have  censured  any  judge,  here  or  elsewhere,  for  his 
opinion,  which  is  a  very  different  matter.  When  Judge  Settle 
rose  superior  to  the  barbarous  rulings  of  a  ruder  age  he  is  to  be 
commended;  but  if  other  judges  have  found  themselves  unable 
to  do  the  same,  they  are  not  to  be  blamed.  They  have  acted 
honestly,  tho  you  and  I  think,  unadvisedly. 

A  gentleman  not  long  since  entered  a  church  in  jSTew  York 
after  the  sermon  began.  Getting  restive  at  the  length  of  the 
sermon,  he  leant  over  and  asked  the  gentleman  on  the  bench 
in  front,  "How  long  has  he  been  preaching?"  This  gentleman, 
not  understanding  the  question,  replied,  "I  do  not  know  exactly, 
but  I  think  about  35  years,"  to  which  the  first  man  replied,  "If 
that  is  so,  I  will  stay  a  little  longer,  for  he  must  be  most  thru." 
You  doubtless  think  that  I  have  been  talking  a  long  time 
already,  so  I  will  detain  you  only  to  touch  upon  the  question 
of  the  prospective  status  of  women. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  the  majority  of  women  in  North  Caro- 
lina do  not  yet  desire  what  is  known  as  equal  suffrage.  But  it 
is  as  certain,  as  anything  in  the  future  can  be,  that  the  time  is 
not  far  distant  when,  the  world  around,  women  will  be  consulted 
in  the  direction  of  government  as  fully  as  men.  They  now 
pay  taxes  without  representation.  They  bear  the  burdens  of 
bad  government  even  more  than  men.  Had  they  possessed  the 
right  of  suffrage  the  liquor  traffic  and  cognate  evils  would  long 
since  have  been  abolished  by  law  and  the  law  enforced.  With 
the  aid  of  women's  votes,  we  should  have  had  a  better  educa- 
tional system,  laws  against  child  labor,  better  sanitation,  and 
other  enactments  for  the  betterment  of  the  conditions  of  the 
home  and  of  the  more  helpless  part  of  society.     It  is  certain 


14 

that  the  main  force  which  has  opposed  the  adoption  of  equal 
suffrage  has  come  from  the  whiskey  trust,  the  vice  trust,  and 
the  political  machines  which  have  been  operated  with  money 
furnished  by  the  great  interests  which  have  derived  revenues 
from  the  adulteration  of  food  products  and  other  abuses.  It  is 
said  that  in  Michigan  last  fall,  woman's  suffrage  really  carried 
the  State  by  7,000  majority,  but  when  these  Interests,  especially 
the  whiskey  trust,  found  that  to  be  the  result,  they  bought  the 
returns  in  the  more  distant  counties  and  thus  showed  a  ma- 
jority of  some  700  against  the  woman's  suffrage  amendment. 
When  the  amendment  was  again  submitted  recently  to  the 
people,  these  Interests  were  organized  and  with  abundant  funds 
defeated  the  amendment.     But  it  will  yet  be  adopted. 

Full  woman's  suffrage  and  eligibility  to  all  offices  was  adopted 
in  Wyoming  over  40  years  ago.  Later  Colorado  followed.  It 
was  afterwards  adopted  in  all  the  Australian  states  and  New 
Zealand.  It  has  now  been  adopted  in  Finland,  Norway, 
Sweden,  Denmark,  and  by  9  states  and  1  Territory  of  this 
Union,  and  even  in  the  great  new  Republic  of  China  with  its 
400  millions  of  people.  The  fact  that  the  movement  is  spread- 
ing is  evidence  conclusive  that  it  has  worked  satisfactorily. 
The  progress  that  has  been  made  by  women  in  obtaining  their 
property  and  personal  rights  is  an  evolution.  Further  progress 
along  that  line  and  further  betterment  of  social  conditions  will 
largely  depend  upon  the  admission  of  women  to  the  right  of 
suffrage. 

We  have  heard  much  of  the  "Submerged  Tenth."  I  have  the 
honor  now  to  speak  to  the  representatives  of  the  "Disfranchised 
Half."  Mr.  Seward  more  than  half  a  century  ago  declared 
that  this  country  "could  not  live  half  slave  and  half  free." 
He  was  a  true  prophet.  Our  civilization  cannot  progress  to  its 
ultimate  end  with  half  our  population,  the  equals  in  intelli- 
gence, in  patriotism,  and  in  public  spirit  of  the  other  half,  and 
in  some  respects  its  superior,  utterly  denied  all  share  in  the 
direction  and  control  of  the  government  which  bears  alike  upon 
all  parts  of  society.  Ought  we  to  deprive  ourselves  of  the  power- 
ful influence  to  be  derived  from  the  participation  in  the  govern- 
ment of  one-half  of  our  people? 


15 

I  shall  not  make  an  argument  in  favor  of  woman's  suffrage. 
It  will  work  its  way  without  any  help  from  me  or  others,  and 
in  spite  of  opposition,  from  whomsoever  it  may  come.  I  will 
merely  give  briefly  some  of  the  reasons  that  have  been  debated 
pro  and  con. 

1.  The  objection  is  made  that  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
women  is  unnecessary,  because  every  woman  can  vote  thru  her 
husband.  This  cannot  be  true.  Who  casts  the  vote  for  the 
drunkard's  wife?  Then  there  are  a  large  number  of  women 
who  are  either  widows  or  have  never  cared  to  marry ;  who  casts 
their  vote?  There  are  9,000,000  unmarried  women  in  this 
country.  There  are  8,000,000  of  unmarried  men  in  the  United 
States.  What  woman's  views  does  each  of  them  express?  If 
the  supposed  "indirect  influence"  of  married  women  is  legiti- 
mate, why  should  it  not  be  expressed  directly  by  the  ballot? 

2.  It  has  been  urged  that  the  ballot  is  a  substitute  for  physical 
force.  And  that  each  ballot  represents  a  musket.  But  half 
of  the  soldiers  in  every  war  are  under  21  and  are  not  voters. 
Few  soldiers  are  over  35,  but  all  adult  males  are  voters.  The 
argument  that  voters  are  substitutes  for  muskets  is  therefore  un- 
tenable. Besides,  if  men  bear  arms,  the  women  raise  the  men, 
and  train  them  to  be  brave  and  patriotic.  The  women  do  their 
full  duty  to  their  country  thereby. 

3.  Another  argument  is  that  women  should  employ  them- 
selves with  their  home  duties  and  the  raising  of  their  children. 
It  will  hardly  interfere  much  with  these  duties  for  a  woman 
to  take  an  hour  off  once  every  two  years  to  record  her  opinion 
by  dropping  her  ticket  in  the  ballot  box.  Are  they  so  over- 
worked that  they  cannot  be  spared  that  much  time?  If  so, 
they  need  the  ballot.  We  know  that  the  churches  are  largely 
kept  up  and  maintained  by  the  activity  of  the  women,  who 
constitute  two-thirds  or  more  of  church  membership.  This  does 
not  interfere  with  their  home  duties. 

4.  It  is  said  that  women  ought  not  to  go  into  the  filth  and 
mire  of  politics.  If  there  is  filth  and  mire  in  politics,  it  is  due 
entirely  to  the  men,  who  so  far  have  had  sole  charge  of  it.  It 
is  time  that  the  women  had  taken  a  hand  and  given  us  a 
political  house-cleaning,  as  they  did  in  Seattle,  and  other  places. 


16 

Wherever  woman's  suffrage  has  been  tried  it  has  broadened  and 
benefited  the  women  and  the  suffrage  has  been  benefited  by  them. 

5.  It  is  said  that  women  have  no  experience  in  electoral  mat- 
ters. But  when  a  boy  becomes  21  he  has  no  experience,  yet  he 
is  admitted  at  once  to  the  suffrage.  When  his  sister  becomes  21 
she  has  had  exactly  the  same  opportunities  and  the  same  lack 
of  experience.     Why  should  there  be  any  discrimination? 

6.  It  is  stated  as  an  objection  to  women's  suffrage  that  our 
negro  cooks  could  vote.  As  much  and  no  more  than  the  cook's 
husband  can.  And  I  have  not  yet  heard  it  asserted  that  white 
men  should  not  vote  because  the  negro  might.  If  the  negro 
cannot  vote,  neither  will  his  wife.  If  he  does  vote,  we  ought 
not  therefore  to  disfranchise  white  men  to  get  rid  of  him. 
Nor  should  we  disfranchise  white  women  to  keep  their  cooks 
from  voting. 

7.  Then  there  is  the  outworn  argument  that  we  should  put 
woman  on  a  pedestal.  Has  any  one  ever  seen  it  done  ?  "When 
Knighthood  was  in  Flower"  the  sisters  were  often  put  in  con- 
vents that  their  brothers  might  have  the  estates  to  squander  in 
brutal  and  licentious  pleasures.  Whenever  the  law  has  been 
administered  solely  by  men,  there  has  been  gross  discrimination 
against  women.  As  some  poet  has  well  said,  "Man  to  man  so 
oft  unjust,  is  always  so  to  woman."  Indeed,  Lord  Coke,  the 
bright  particular  star  of  the  common  law,  in  speaking  of  one 
instance  in  which  the  law  discriminated  most  unjustly  against 
women,  uses  this  expression,  "Herein  the  common  law  shaketh 
hands  with  divinitie."  He  had  doubtless  just  lost  out  in  some 
debate  with  his  beautiful  but  eloquent  wife. 

8.  One  great  motive  that  is  urging  on  suffrage  for  women  is 
the  demand  of  "equal  pay  for  equal  service."  Justice  demands 
this,  but  it  has  not  been  and  never  will  be  granted  except  where 
women  can  make  their  influence  felt  by  the  ballot. 

In  every  land,  civilization  has  been  measured  by  the  status  of 
women.  Among  barbarians,  they  are  beasts  of  burden.  Among 
the  semi-civilized,  they  are  secluded;  and  among  the  fanatic 
followers  of  the  fiery  prophet  of  Mecca,  embracing  nearly  one- 
third  of  the  people  of  the  globe,  it  is  held  that  they  have  no 
souls.  If  the  same  belief  were  entertained  among  us  our 
churches  would  soon  go  to  ruin. 


17 

The  average  man  is  thoroughly  imbued,  with  the  idea  of  his 
superiority  to  women.  There  is  nothing  to  base  it  upon  except 
superiority  of  brute  force,  and  not  always  that.  It  is  due 
most  largely  to  the  fact  that  it  was  not  spanked  out  of  them  by 
their  mothers  when  they  were  little.  In  the  language  of  Scrip- 
ture, "If  you  bray  him  in  a  mortar,  yet  will  not  his  folly  depart 
from  him."  Even  good  men  are  obsessed,  by  it.  Matthew  and 
Mark,  the  evangelists,  in  speaking  of  the  mother  of  the  apostles 
James  and  John,  do  not  name  her,  but  in  quite  a  superior  man- 
ner refer  to  her  as  the  "mother  of  Zebedee's  children/'  What 
she  did  is  remembered  to  this  day.  But  what  did  Zebedee  do 
that  his  name  should  come  sounding  down  to  us  across  the  cen- 
turies above  the  wreck  of  empires  and  the  crash  of  dynasties?  I 
would  like  to  know  that  woman's  name.  She  stood  for  some- 
thing.    I  never  did  care  a  fig  for  Zebedee. 

Then  there  is  Augustine,  a  really  great  man,  whom  some  call 
St.  Augustine,  as  if  a  man  could  be  a  saint.  He  owed  every- 
thing to  the  training  of  his  mother,  St.  Monica,  who  was  truly  a 
saint  and  a  great  woman,  but  even  he  speaks  of  women  as  "a 
necessary  evil,  an  agreeable  calamity."  I  do  not  like  to  talk 
slang,  but  when  a  man  speaks  of  women  in  that  way,  I  think 
he  is  "biggety,"  if  he  is  a  saint. 

They  call  you  "the  weaker  sex."  But  you  will  remember  that 
in  Luke  (ch.  xiv,  v.  17-20),  when  invitations  were  sent  out  to 
supper,  "They  all  with  one  consent  began  to  make  excuse."  One 
said  he  had  bought  a  piece  of  ground  and  must  go  and.  see  it, 
and.  he  prayed  to  be  excused.  Another  said  he  had  bought  5 
yoke  of  oxen,  that  he  must  prove  them,  and  therefore  he  prayed 
to  be  excused ;  but  another  said :  "I  have  married  a  wife,  and 
therefore  I  cannot  come."  So  you  see  that  there  is  Scripture 
that  a  wife  is  stronger  than  5  yoke  of  oxen. 

Thoughtful  men  everywhere  are  beginning  to  believe  that  the 
exclusion  of  the  intelligence,  public  spirit,  and  patriotism  of 
one-half  of  our  people  from  a  share  in  the  Government  is  a 
great  injury  and  a  serious  detriment  to  progress.  We  must  re- 
call, as  one  qualification  for  equal  suffrage,  that  criminal  statis- 
tics show  that  criminals  are  five  times  more  numerous  among 
men,  and  that  the  proportion  of  women  criminals  is  smaller 
still  where  they  have  property  rights,  suffrage,  and  equal  pay. 


18 

2To  argument  lias  yet  been  used  against  the  admission  of 
women  to  the  suffrage  that  is  not  based  upon  one  of  two 
grounds.  Either  it  is  based  on  the  fears  of  bad  men,  who  know 
tbat  the  ballots  of  women  will  abolish  the  abuses  by  which  they 
live  and  profit,  or  it  is  based  on  the  opposition  of  good  men, 
who  are  by  nature  opposed  to  any  change  in  anything.  These 
last  do  not  realize  that  the  world  turns  completely  over  in  every 
twenty-four  hours. 

There  are  those  who  think  that  they  have  exhausted  ridicule 
.and  destroyed  all  claim  of  women  to  any  rights  by  speaking 
of  them  and  their  friends  as  "long-haired  men  and  short-haired 
women."  I  am  sure  that  none  of  these  slanderers  will  be  atro- 
cious enough  to  call  me  a  "long-haired  man."  And  as  to  "short- 
haired  women,"  I  would  recall  that  at  the  siege  of  Saguntum, 
at  the  siege  of  Carthage,  at  the  siege  of  Tyre,  and  many  another, 
the  women  cut  off  their  long,  beautiful  tresses  to  make  bow- 
strings to  speed  the  arrows  which  saved  their  city  and  their 
country.  Your  sex  has  never  been  wanting  in  devotion  to  coun- 
try and  to  public  duty.     And  as  to  courage  and  fidelity — 

"Not  she  with  trait'rous  kiss  her  Savior  stung, 
Not  she  denied  Him  with  unholy  tongue ; 
She,  when  apostles  fled,  could  dangers  brave. 
Last  at  the  cross,  and  first  at  the  grave." 

The  common  law  esteemed  her  a  slave,  but  as  was  said  of 
Epictetus,  the  philosopher,  "He  was  oppressed,  and  a  slave,  but 
dear  to  the  immortals." 

When  the  evolution  began  which  will  give  women  just  and 
equal  rights  of  property  and  person,  the  opposition  was  as  fierce, 
and  prophecies  of  evil  to  come  therefrom  were  as  dreadful  as 
those  which  are  now  made  in  regard  to  their  admission  to  the 
suffrage.  A  writer  of  that  day,  answering  this  argument,  said : 
"We  read  in  Gibbon  that,  'After  the  edicts  of  Theodosius  had 
severely  prohibited  the  sacrifices  of  the  pagans,  they  were  still 
tolerated  in  the  city  and  temple  of  Serapis ;  and  this  singular  in- 
dulgence was  imprudently  ascribed  to  the  superstitious  terrors  of 
Christians  themselves,  as  if  they  feared  to  abolish  those  ancient 
rites  which  could  alone  secure  the  inundations  of  the  jSTile,  the 
harvests  and  the  subsistence  of  Constantinople.    But  the  temple 


19 

was  at  last  destroyed  and  the  statue  of  Serapis  was  involved  in 
ruin.  It  was  confidently  affimied  that  if  any  impious  hand 
should  dare  to  violate  the  majesty  of  the  god,  the  heavens  and 
the  earth  would  instantly  return  to  their  original  chaos.  An 
intrepid  soldier,  animated  with  zeal  and  armed  with  a  heavy 
battle-axe,  ascended  the  ladder;  and  even  the  Christian  multi- 
tude expected,  with  some  anxiety,  the  event  of  the  combat.  He 
aimed  a  vigorous  stroke  against  the  cheek  of  Serapis;  the 
cheek  fell  to  the  ground;  the  thunder  was  still  silent,  and  both 
the  heavens  and  the  earth  continued  to  preserve  their  accus- 
tomed order  and  tranquility.  The  victorious  soldier  repeated 
his  blows ;  the  huge  idol  was  overthrown  and  broken  in  pieces ; 
and  the  limbs  of  Serapis  were  ignominiously  dragged  thru  the 
streets  of  Alexandria.'  The  law  of  the  status  of  woman  is 
the  last  vestige  of  slavery.  Upon  their  subjection,  it  has  been 
thought,  rests  the  basis  of  society;  disturb  that,  and  society 
crumbles  into  ruins.  By  the  married  woman's  property  acts, 
the  first  blow  has  been  struck.  The  cheek  of  the  idol  has 
fallen  to  the  ground;  the  thunder  is  silent,  and  the  earth  pre- 
serves its  accustomed  tranquility.  The  huge  idol  will  sooner 
or  later  be  broken  in  pieces." 

The  movement  for  the  equality  of  women  is  as  irresistible 
as  the  tides  which  the  followers  of  Canute  endeavored  to  stay 
with  words.  The  reasoning  of  a  woman  who  opposes  it  reminds 
one  of  the  woman  at  Marble  Head,  whose  relatives  were  engaged 
in  the  whale  oil  business  and  who  opposed  the  introduction  of 
gas  by  saying,  "What  will  become  of  the  poor  whales  ?" 

We  cannot  envy  any  man  who  deems  that  his  mother,  his 
wife,  and  his  daughter  are  inferior  to  himself.  With  some 
men,  it  may  be  truly  said  that  they  are  not  subject  to  this  re- 
proach, but  it  is  with  them  mostly  the  inertia  of  ideas.  History 
shows  few  great,  or  good,  men  who  did  not  greatly  owe  their 
success  to  their  mothers  or  their  wives. 

Some  one  has  quaintly  said  that  when  woman  was  formed 
she  was  not  taken  from  the  head  of  the  man,  lest  she  rule  over 
him,  nor  from  his  feet,  lest  he  trample  upon  her,  but  from  his 
side,  that  she  might  be  his  equal. 

Those  who  see  the  beginning  of  a  revolution  do  not  always 
recognize  that  they  are  already  in  the  midst  of  one.     When  in 


20 

1830  Charles  X.  of  France  issued  his  Ordonnances  lie  expected 
some  slight  opposition,  and  removed  his  court  to  the  Palace  of 
St.  Cloud  on  the  edge  of  Paris.  When  the  resistance  hecame  de- 
cided and  the  discharge  of  cannon  shook  the  palace  windows,  he 
remarked  to  a  former  marshal  of  aSTapoleon  who  stood  on  the 
lawn  beneath  him  :  "Why,  this  is  a  revolt !"  The  veteran  whose 
trained  ear  had  caught  the  regular  roll  of  musketry  which 
showed  that  troops  of  the  line  had  gone  over  to  the  people, 
replied :  "Your  Majesty,  it  is  not  a  revolt ;  it  is  a  Eevolution." 
Before  sunrise  the  last  of  the  Bourbons  was  on  his  way  to  the 
frontiers  and  that  long  exile  from  which  the  dynasty  has  never 
returned. 

Those  who  have  observed  closely  the  management  of  the 
movement  for  women's  rights  which  is  going  on  all  around  the 
world  have  noted  the  method  and  consummate  skill  with  which 
it  is  being  handled.  It  is  no  longer  in  the  hands  of  mere 
enthusiasts,  but  it  is  being  managed  with  ability  and  skill,  and 
with  a  success  that  no  temporary  check  can  defeat. 

Among  savage  tribes  the  club  of  the  husband  was  logical. 
And  under  the  common  law  so  was  the  lash,  because  women 
being  kept  in  ignorance  and  deprived  of  property  rights  could 
be  thus  governed.  But  when  they  were  educated1  and  given  the 
right  to  own  property  these  things  became  illogical  and  impossi- 
ble. The  men  of  former  days  were  well  aware  of  this,  and  they 
showed  much  more  judgment  in  opposing  the  conferring  of 
property  rights  and  education  upon  women  than  do  the  men 
of  this  day  who  oppose  giving  them  the  suffrage.  The  first 
schools  for  women  in  this  country  are  not  much  over  a  hundred 
years  old.  And  the  first  woman's  college  was  established  by 
Mrs.  Emma  Willard  in  1821.  Those  who  will  turn  to  the  litera- 
ture of  that  day  will  see  that  the  opposition  to  the  education  of 
women  was  as  violent,  as  much  ridicule  was  used  and  as  many 
prophecies  of  evil  to  come,  as  are  now  employed  against  giving 
them  the  suffrage.  When  education  was  followed  by  the  gradual 
bestowal  of  property  rights  and  the  abolition  of  the  husband's 
right  to  chastise  and  imprison  his  wife,  exactly  the  same  argu- 
ments were  used  with  exactly  the  same  foolish  talk  of  putting 
women  on  pedestals  and  the  like. 


21 

Under  the  old  system  a  woman  above  the  grade  of  a  day 
laborer  had  only  two  careers  open  to  her — marriage  or  needle- 
work. Now  in  North  Carolina  we  have  women  lawyers,  and 
bank  presidents,  doctors,  preachers,  teachers,  journalists,  clerks, 
college  presidents,  and  everything  else.  In  the  Union  there  are 
now  3,000  women  lawyers,  4,000  women  preachers,  and  as  many 
women  doctors;  3,000  journalists,  and  indeed  they  fill  every 
vocation.  For  some  vocations  they  are  better  adapted  than 
men.  For  others  men  are  better  fitted,  but  the  choice  of  a  voca- 
tion should  be  freely  left  to  every  woman,  as  well  as  to  every 
man,  to  be  determined  by  the  individual,  and  success  therein 
should  depend  upon  merit  and  not  be  arbitrarily  decided  by  the 
accident  of  sex  or  birth.  If  a  woman  can  make  a  good  poem,  a 
good  speech,  or  a  good  song,  she  should  be  free  to  do  so,  and  the 
world  should  not  be  deprived  of  the  benefit. 

Notwithstanding  the  boasted  chivalry  of  the  Southern  States, 
they  were  the  slowest  to  give  women  freedom  from  the  husband's 
lash  or  their  property  rights.  And  they  now  are  the  last  to 
give  them  that  right  of  suffrage  to  which  their  intelligence  and 
patriotism  entitle  them.  In  Kentucky,  Missouri,  Louisiana, 
Arkansas,  and  Oklahoma  they  have  the  right  to  vote  in  school 
elections  and  on  assessments  of  taxes  and  the  issue  of  bonds.  In 
Arizona  they  have  full  suffrage.  In  some  of  the  other  Southern 
States  they  are  trustees  on  school  boards. 

The  "rights  of  women"  may  be  well  summed  up  as  follows : 
Equal  pay  for  equal  services ;  equality  of  property  rights,  so 
that  a  wife  may  have  the  same  control  over  her  property  as  her 
single  sister  or  her  husband ;  the  repeal  of  all  judicial  decisions 
that  give  the  husband  the  right  to  chastise  or  imprison  her, 
which  give  him  more  control  over  her  than  she  has  over  him; 
equality  of  right  in  the  custody  of  children  and  in  the  appoint- 
ment of  guardians ;  the  same  grounds  of  divorce  for  wife  as  for 
husband;  and  finally,  an  equal  share  in  the  conduct  of  the  Gov- 
ernment by  the  equal  right  to  the  ballot  in  the  selection  of 
officers  or  in  taxing  her  property,  and  equality  of  right  to  hold 
office.  There  is  nothing  wrong  in  demanding  equality  in  these 
matters.  Now  that  women  are  educated  and  hold  property, 
equality  of  right  to  the  suffrage  and  to  hold  office  cannot  long 


22 

be  denied  them.  In  states  where  women  have  the  right  of  suf- 
frage, equality  of  pay  for  equal  services  and  regard  for  her 
wishes  in  the  conduct  of  the  Government  are  maintained. 
Women  will  rarely  desire  to  hold  office,  but  it  is  insulting  to  be 
held  by  law  unfit  for  it.  j 

The  most  powerful  weapon  of  the  great  Napoleon  was  not  his 
artillery,  but  his  declaration  that  his  Government  stood  for  the 
principle  of  "an  avenue  open  to  merit  without  distinction  of 
birth."  This  kept  the  Bourbons  out  for  25  years.  In  our  coun- 
try, certainly,  we  should  call  to  the  aid  of  the  Government  and 
of  our  civilization  every  power  of  the  intellect  and  proclaim 
"an  avenue  open  to  merit  without  distinction  of  sex." 

The  vote  of  the  women,  if  cast  solidly,  can  already  decide  a 
Presidential  election,  or  the  balance  of  power  in  Congress,  both 
in  the  Senate  and  House.  Their  demand  for  votes  has  passed 
the  stage  of  ridicule.  One  great  National  Party  has  already 
placed  a  demand  for  equal  suffrage  in  its  platform  and  the 
Chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  states  that  his  committee 
will  report  favorably  the  constitutional  amendment  to  confer 
the  suffrage.  There  is  a  stronger  sentiment  for  it,  even  in  North 
Carolina,  than  politicians  dream,  or  you  yourselves  may  be 
aware  of.  I  claim  no  special  sources  of  information,  but  I  have 
some  knowledge  of  human  nature.  I  know  that  those  who  have 
mental  capacity  equal  to  others  will  not  be,  and  are  not,  satisfied 
to  be  deprived  of  equal  opportunities  and  equal  compensation. 
I  know  that  this  is  a  world  movement,  and  that  the  same  rea- 
sons and  influences  which  are  driving  it  on  everywhere  else  will 
operate  here. 

The  effect  of  the  ballot  has  been  shown  recently  in  tbe  Wash- 
ington incident,  when  the  women  made  their  march  the  day  be- 
fore the  Inauguration  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  At  the  in- 
stance of  the  liquor  interests  and  the  vice  trust,  all  the  roughs 
and  hoodlums  of  the  town  were  collected  to  break  up  the  march. 
The  police,  which  in  large  cities  are  usually  in  league  with  these 
Interests,  thought  it  great  fun,  and  were  much  amused  at  the 
outrage ;  but  they  have  not  laughed  since.  The  members  of  Con- 
gress and  Senators  from  9  states  were  dependent  upon  the 
women's  votes,   and  there  were  several  other  states  in  which 


23 

constitutional  amendments  to  give  them  the  suffrage  are  pend- 
ing. Besides,  the  sense  of  decency  of  the  public  was  roused  at 
the  outrage,  with  the  result  of  an  investigation,  and  in  a  march 
the  women  have  since  made,  in  that  city,  they  have  been  treated 
with  as  much  respect  as  the  President  himself. 

Col.  Henry  Watterson  gives  an  interesting  account  of  the  first 
occasion  when  an  advocate  of  Woman's  Suffrage  appeared  be- 
fore a  Democratic  National  Convention.  He  had  been  elected 
president  of  that  body,  in  1876  at  St.  Louis,  where  Tilden  and 
Hendricks  were  nominated.  A  committee  asked  him  to  permit 
a  lady  to  appear  before  the  Convention  to  ask  for  the  insertion 
of  a  plank  favoring  equal  suffrage.  He  told  them  it  would  cre- 
ate a  big  row,  but  he  was  a  Kentucky  gentleman  and  did  not 
know  how  to  refuse  a  lady  anything,  and  said  he  would  do  his 
best.  During  a  lull  in  the  proceedings,  he  sent  a  committee  out 
to  bring  Miss  Cousens,  the  representative  of  the  movement,  to 
the  platform.  He  told  the  Convention  what  he  had  done.  Imme- 
diately there  was  tumult  all  over  the  hall,  for  the  idea  of 
Woman's  Suffrage  was  then  new,  and  he  said  he  thought  they 
would  take  him  out  of  the  chair  by  force.  Just  then  he  saw  the 
committee  coming  down  the  aisle  with  the  lady  at  their  head. 
He  says  that  to  his  intense  relief  at  a  glance  he  saw  that  she 
was  a  beauty  and  dressed  to  kill.  As  she  rose  the  platform  and 
faced  the  audience,  the  tumult  immediately  ceased  and  there  was 
a  buzz  of  admiration,  except  one  man  immediately  in  front,  who 
yelled  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  "Point  of  order,  Mr.  Chairman! 
point  of  order."  Eaising  his  gavel  as  if  about  to  throw  it  at 
him,  he  shouted,  "Sit  down  thar!  There  is  no  point  of  order 
when  a  lady  has  the  floor."  The  Convention  cheered  and  the 
man  subsided.  When  Miss  Cousens  concluded,  she  had  an  ova- 
tion. Prom  that  day  to  this  no  request  of  that  kind  has  been 
denied  by  any  National  Convention.  Indeed,  at  least  one  Na- 
tional party  (Progressive)  has  put  a  demand  for  "Equal  Suf- 
frage" in  its  platform,  and  if  the  Prohibition  Party  has  not 
done  the  same,  it  is  very  ungrateful. 

We  may  well  say  of  this  movement  for  equality  of  rights,  as 
Curran,  the  impassioned  orator  of  Ireland,  when  he  thrilled  his 
audience,  by  declaring  that  he  looked  forward  to  the  time  when 


24 

lie  would  see  his  country,  in  all  its  majesty  and  loveliness,  "re- 
deemed, regenerated,  and  disenthralled  by  the  irresistible  might 
of  universal  emancipation." 

After  the  defeat  at  Cunaxa,  the  Greek  contingent,  deprived  of 
their  generals,  found  themselves  in  the  midst  of  the  Persian 
empire  surrounded  by  millions  of  their  enemies.  Like  brave 
men,  they  determined  not  to  surrender,  but  to  cut  their  way  out. 
They  could  not  return  over  the  long  route  by  which  they  had 
come,  and  set  out  across  the  mountains  to  find  the  nearest  sea 
by  which  they  could  return  to  Greece.  After  weeks  of  daily 
battles,  the  head  of  the  column,  led  by  Xenophon,  climbing  the 
mountains  of  Kurdistan,  caught  sight  of  the  wide  waste  of 
waters  which  would  bear  them  back  to  Argos,  to  Athens  and  to 
Sparta.  They  shouted  "Thalatia!  Thalatta!"— "The  sea!  The 
sea !"  The  cry  rolled  back  down  the  mountain  along  the  strug- 
gling columns,  cheering  the  weak,  the  weary,  and  the  wounded 
with  the  hope  of  home,  at  last.  The  women  have  made  a  brave 
and  gallant  fight,  not  only  for  justice  to  themselves,  but,  in 
their  unselfishness,  for  justice  and  salvation  for  the  little  chil- 
dren and  for  justice  to  all  the  poor  and  oppressed.  Your  ad- 
vancing columns  have  caught  sight  of  that  immortal  sea  of  jus- 
tice which  enwraps  the  globe,  and  you  have  seen  glimmering 
upon  it,  in  ever-broadening  circles  of  light,  the  rosy  auroras  of 
the  coming  dawn,  for  all  mankind,  of  a  brighter  and  a  happier 
day. 


